Your Humble Scribe

Monday, September 11, 2006

11SEP2001

As I stroll through Blog World, I notice that today is a day for memories. Today is the day to tell the world about the things you were doing five years ago.

This action of remembering is -- I'm guessing -- cathartic. It helps folks wrap their minds around a concept that shook their very world-view.

I can understand this, and I can approve of this.

My worldview didn't change any, so I doubt that me telling you that I was driving to Austin that day is going to do either one of us any good.

What I'd like to ruminate upon, is not what Iwas doing five years ago, but rather, what the United States was doing.

America was locked in political bi-partisan bickering. The Main Stream Media didn't believe that George W. Bush was legally President of this nation, nor that he deserved a seat in the Oval Office.

Congress was mired in mud-slinging and back-stabbing.

We were negotiating with radical fundamentalist states; the Taliban was routinely hanging women in soccer stadiums for showing ankle, or being out after dark without an escort, while simultaneously ignoring two United Nations Resolutions to cease supporting terrorism and to extradite Osama bin Laden; Saddam Hussein was gassing Kurds, massacring his own population and cocking the snook at the United Nations and its 14 -- FOURTEEN -- resolutions to Stop Doing That; Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri hauled off and signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders commanding The Faithful to kill Americans where ever they be found -- and we decided they just needed to be understood.

Any jihadist who wanted to take a crack at America had to settle for blowing up our unsuspecting USN ships; blowing-up our embassies or murdering our citizens a few at a time.

Then came Sept 11, 2001. Islamic terrorists hi-jacked four airplanes, and flew three of them into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Islamic terrorists managed to murder three thousand-odd people at one fell swoop.

Jihadists finally got a chance to die on American soil that day, and the results were better than anything they could have dreamed of; better than anything their leaders could have dreamed of.

So.

We came together as a nation that day. We supported our leaders and we pledged to avenge that act of wanton murder, and to insure that those people who could conceive of such a plan would be wiped from the face of the Earth.

We went into Afghanistan and started killing Taliban, until they ran and hid.

We entered Iraq, and dug the one of the most powerful and prestigious Islamic leaders out of a filthy hole in the ground, occupied a central location in the Islamic world, and then gave every two-bit would-be jihadist a place to go and die -- far from the shores of America and her civilians.

Five years later:

America is locked in bi-partisan bickering. The Main Stream Media is actively opposing anything the President does to fight terror, up to and including distortions and out-right in-your-teeth fabrications -- complete with photo-shopped evidence to back up their lies.

Congress is mired in mud-slinging and back-stabbing.

We're negotiating with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah; who are both cocking the famous snook at United Nations resolutions while simultaneously demanding that Israel follow U.N. resolutions; and (American) intellectuals/Media are demanding that we stop killing critters who have Evil Intentions toward us, and instead, to solve our differences without bloodshed.

They want us to stop killing terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, never mind the fact that if jihadists don't have an Iraq or an Afghanistan to go to die in, they'll come to the U.S. to die instead -- as they did on 9/11/2001.

In other words: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same.

*sigh*

I hate to think that the deaths of those three thousand-odd people was in vain, but I have the awful feeling that in a year or so, the deaths of all three thousand innocent men, women and children will have been for naught.LawDog

It seems in this day and age of disposable everything, even History is disposable, or if you don't like it, you can just rewrite. Why, oh why don't we ALL learn from it instead?

The radical Islamists don't want to sit down and reason with us, have tea or coffee with us, or even split sheep or a camel with us. They also don't hate us because we are Capitalists or Westerners. They hate us and want us dead because we don't believe the same as they do. We don't worship the same god/religion they do, either, and they hate that beyond all reason. They want us to convert to Islam and practice Sharia law...PERIOD!! If we don't, then we are to die by any means possible that they can come up with. Learn this, people of America. Learn it before it's too late!!

We must fight back by any means possible, and meet them on their turf. We can't let them come to America to kill us again. This is the lesson we need to learn from 9/11/01.

The one thing American military history should show is that it is ALWAYS better to fight a war as an AWAY game. When it gets to your own soil, an already horrible and nasty thing becomes far more horrible and nasty.

If we lay off over there, we'll be seeing them over here. And those states that have passed CCW laws, well, those citizens will probably be needing a gun at hand.

I would like to share some of my memories of 9/11. I woke up later than most, and when I turned on the TV, the first thing I saw was the Twin Towers coming down. I sank down into my chair and covered my mouth in horror. I had never been to NYC, but my younger brother had when he was in college, and he had even eaten in Windows on the World.

The next thing that was flashed on the screen was the pictures of all of the hijackers. Even more horriying was the realization that I had seen Mohammed Atta before, but I couldn't remember exactly where(possibly my apt. complex). I lived in Ft. Myers, FL at the time, which was only 30 minutes from where he lived. It's horrifying to think that I lived that close to Satan.

Having a war and a simple good/evil us/them worldview is apparently what's needed to get Americans all going in the same direction. Americans don't see shades of grey... Only black and white, and WE are allways wearing the white hat, no matter what.

The cold truth is that the very first thought I had upon seeing the towers burning was "This is taking Architectural criticism a mite far". In excuse I can only offer that a) it was not at that time known that the disaster was a deliberate attack and b) I have always thought the Towers (and all other glass boxes of the type) inexcusably ugly.

When it became clear that the United States was under attack by barbarians, my next thought was "well, I've been expecting something of the kind for twenty years". I have never shared the Left's unwholesome fascination with the Violent, the Insane, and the Very Dirty, and hope that M. Rousseau is in Hell, where he belongs.

Mr. Bush is in the unenviable position of having to do something when the reasonable course to short term victory is political poison. Had he, the day after, appeared on international television and picked the names of four or five Islamic cities to obliterate our troubles with the camel pesterers would be over for the immediate future. There have always been Jihadists. What makes them dangerous to us is the support of Islamic Heads of State. Persuade those Heads of State that our wrath is something to be avoided and THEY will squash the fanatics.

Unable, for obvious political reasons, to provide a truly paralyzing set of Object Lessons, Bush has done what he could with what he had to work with. It may not be enough, but this country probably will not countenance enough until an American city is destroyed. Then Hell will be out for noon with little silver bells on, and the Leftwing twerps that clog our streets will have cause to wax nostalgic over the tolerance of the Bush era from inside their prison cells.

We have not lost our tempers. Yet. When we do, let the sons of Mohammed and the sons of Marx tremble.

Having a war and a simple good/evil us/them worldview is apparently what's needed to get Americans all going in the same direction. Americans don't see shades of grey... Only black and white, and WE are allways wearing the white hat, no matter what.

What direction are we going, LawDog?

It's not our side that deliberately targets civilians for destruction. It's not our side that sends children (true children, not the leftist canard that includes men and women who have made a personal choice to fight) strapped with bombs to kill and maim. It's not our side that flouts U.N. resolutions while demanding that our opponent honor them. It's not our side that beheads our prisoners, instead we torture them by giving them prayer rugs and feeding them so much they grow fat. Yet you imply that we are being simplistic and arrogant while you refuse to see that there are indeed obvious and strong moral differences between us and those who attacked us. You, anon, and those like you, are fools.

I HAVE already lost my temper; now I'm close to losing my mind over the 'reality-based community' who can't find their butts with their own two hands.

Bad enough we're looking over our shoulders now for the 'moderate' Muslim who might have just snapped into radicalism, but we've got to contend with the Lefties-to-The-Third-Power calling us nasty names for discriminatory thought and our elected officials defining our enemy as a Religion of Peace.

The Islamists would negotiate with us, alright, starting with our deaths. I carry concealed so I don't have to negotiate that with anyone.

Cindi, Dear, the reason they can't find their butts with their own 2 hands is because they have their heads so far up their hind ends, they can't see. I played Blind Man's Bluff and Marco Polo enough as a child to realize that it's mighty difficult to find things when you can't see. It is probably even harder for those people, as I'm sure they can't even think straight due to lack of oxygen and a serious Methane gas problem.

LawDog, you just nailed the ugly truth lurking behind many a sentimental eulogy today. I was wondering about that earlier today, actually, wondering just how long it would be before the same people giving pious speeches today turned back to their old ways. I’m giving it a week, tops, and yet my optimism for the future remains (tempered however by the hefty dose of realism you supplied). Bravely said.

Raving prophet: "And those states that have passed CCW laws..." Point well taken.

What's next? To quote a number of other posters: They hate us for being different and can't be reasoned with. This is a "clash of civilisations" and they hate us and want us dead because we're different and they hate us beyond all reason. They're immoral and it's OK to kill them (child suicide bombers, sneak attacks, etc.)

OK, there's a time honored and VERY effective way to win a tribal war. Ask the Highland scotts or the Appache, or maybe the Armenians- If you can find any. Are you ready to do it?

"The list of things interrogators cannot do includes abuse alleged at various facilities and some that appear to come directly from Abu Ghraib photographs: forcing a detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over a detainee's head or putting duct tape over his eyes; beatings, electric shocks, burns or other painful tactics; "waterboarding"; using military working dogs; using extreme cold or hot temperatures; mock executions; and depriving a detainee of food, water or medical care."

In my non-humble opinion, we are indeed going to nickle & dime it until the Islamists get a nuke or equivalent in. Then we'll go all Rome & Carthage on them. As a Scots-Irish Jacksonian, this doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is that I fear we'll have a strong leader on a white horse ride forth to save us...right into a facist state. I sometimes wonder if the otherwise inexplicable way we're fighting this war mightn't be intended to achieve just that end.

Matt G, I think it's fascinating that now the Americans have turned Abu Ghraib over to the Iraqis, the inmates are wanting the Americans to come back. Guess they want to groove on some more of our style of torture...